HC: Secret killings verdict challenge petition has failed

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has dismissed the condonation of delay plea in a writ appeal, which was filed in 2021 challenging the court’s 2018 verdict giving relief to former Assam chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta over secret killings during his time.
The bench of chief justice Sandeep Mehta and justice Mitali Thakuria, while hearing the plea filed by Ananta Kalita and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, who is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP, on Monday stated that “the application for condonation of delay is not based on bonafide assertions and grounds and hence, the same does not merit acceptance and as a consequence, the plea is dismissed as being devoid of merit.”
The bench added that as the prayer for condonation of delay has been refused, the writ appeal, which is yet to be numbered, would fail automatically.
In September 2018, a single bench of the high court held that the constitution of the retired Justice KN Saikia Commission in 2005 for an inquiry into secret killings was invalid. The commission had in its report in 2007 indicted Mahanta and the home ministry for the secret killings. After the commission’s report, Mahanta had moved the high court challenging the legality and validity of the constitution of the commission.
Later in 2021, Anata Kalita and Ajit Kumar Bhuyan moved the high court challenging the verdict. Since they filed the writ appeal 531 days after the verdict, they filed a plea seeking condonation of delay in filing the appeal on the ground that they were not a party to the proceedings in the case filed by Mahanta and were thus unaware of the proceedings and its results.
After pursuing all the materials on record and the affidavits filed by Mahanta R Barua, the high court bench stated that the plea put forth by the applicants stating that they were not aware of the verdict is “absolutely false and thus unacceptable” as the verdict was extensively covered by the newspapers.